


Good Intentions (Frans Edition)

by Dale (Bouncyballblue)



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - SlaveTale (Undertale), Alternate Universe - Underfell (Undertale), Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Frans - Freeform, Frisk POV, Slow Burn, Underfell, Underfell Sans (Undertale), Vene that tag is for you, no self-harm or sex-abuse, pretty light-hearted for a Slavetale fic- honestly, sans pov
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-14 07:54:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28667298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bouncyballblue/pseuds/Dale
Summary: Frisk comes across a slave owner beating up a skeleton monster with a gold tooth. (Based on the premise of "Slavetale" by V_mum)
Relationships: Frisk/Sans (Undertale)
Comments: 36
Kudos: 47





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Blood and Marrow](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22889362) by [washi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/washi/pseuds/washi). 



> This was originally a one-shot [Reader-Insert](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26851141), but as I wrote more I realized I kinda wanted to try taking it in the direction of a love story. I'm a sucker for a good enemies→friends→lovers arc. I can't guarantee we'll make it to "lovers" cause I have the attention span of a gopher but they're at least gonna be friends. A few things have been changed from the reader-insert version because "Reader" is not very much like fanon Frisk. For one thing, Reader is a lot dumber and more prone to swearing. UF Sans is still UF Sans in all his tsundere glory. In this fic, Frisk is an adult woman living on the surface at the time the monsters escape from The Underground. "But then how'd they get out?" you ask. Oh, you'll see. I definitely have a plan. Definitely. I've thought it alllll out. 100% not making it up as I go.
> 
> To my knowledge, this is the first Underfell/Slavetale Frans fic, and probably the only Slavetale fic that's supposed to be funny and not depressingly grim. There are some sad parts but there won't be any gratuitous violence, self-harm, or sexual abuse- Sans deals with enough of that fuckery in this fandom already. The setup is heavily based on the original[”Slavetale” story by V_mum](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7370509/)  
> , wherein the reader saves an enslaved Sans from an owner beating him up on the street and accidentally becomes his owner. It also draws inspiration from [”Blood and Marrow” by Tiocpi(washi)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22889362)

Eight years ago, magical monsters emerged from their centuries-long imprisonment under Mt. Ebott and immediately declared war on humankind. Using the souls of seven humans, presumed to be among the plethora of missing persons cases for which Ebott was infamous, the monsters broke a magical barrier apparently constructed by humans of old to prevent just such an escape. Their king, made preternaturally powerful by these souls, spearheaded an assault that absolutely devastated the surrounding cities. The monsters slaughtered without conscience, uncaring if their victims were armed soldiers or children begging for mercy. Human weapons were powerless against their magic and accelerated healing abilities.

In the height of desperation, human government made the incredibly controversial decision to nuke Mt. Ebott; an action of which the ramifications would never be determined, as the monsters somehow redirected the warhead into space. Unable to track its location, all humans of the world collectively held their breath until an enormous cloud of dust on the moon's surface marked the missile's impact on the celestial body a week later.

While monsters celebrated this, their greatest victory, the moon-nuking marked a turning point in the war. Until then, the monsters' assault had been limited only to North America, where Mt. Ebott was located. However, worldwide outrage over the attack on the moon provoked international action. Scientists and technological experts worked together, their efforts culminating in the development of magical control collars. These devices, while having no effect on humans, could not only disable a monster's ability to fight, but also completely override their actions.

The fighting quickly turned from monsters against humans to _monsters against other monsters controlled by humans_. Six months later, the monster king was dead and any free monster still alive was on the lam.

With the immediate threat neutralized, the government was now faced with the difficult question of what to do with the thousands of monsters they'd captured during the war. It didn't take long for money-making entities to see the potential profit in using collar-controlled monsters as magical slaves, and they lobbied for the release of all monsters to the public market. Opposition was strong, but in the end it was impossible to defend a race who had so ruthlessly slaughtered civilians. The public saw enslavement as justice; if anything, it was more mercy than the murderers deserved. A faction of "Eliminationists" lobbied for all monsters to be terminated, and warned that dependency on the control collars was dangerous, but they were a minority. Seven years after the end of war, monster slaves were a ubiquitous presence in most major US cities.


	2. Love at First Bite (okay, that sounds like it's a story about vampires but it's not)

Frisk had just finished work and was starting the long walk back to her car when she heard shouting from the sidewalk up ahead. She pushed through a small crowd to find a crotchety old man screaming and swinging his cane at someone on the ground. As the form dodged, his hood fell back, revealing a control collar under what appeared to be a... skull? Huh, she'd never seen a bony monster before. 

Among sundry incoherencies, she heard the old man, presumably the monster's owner, scream, "Stay still, damnit!" 

A light on the collar flashed green as the command was accepted. The monster froze, completely unable to move or avoid the next attack. 

At this point Frisk lept into action and heroically tackled the old man, knocking both of them down onto the sidewalk pavement. He responded by biting her arm, hard. Apparently he still had his natural teeth or they made dentures ridiculously sharp because it actually broke the skin in a few places. When she yelled at an interested bystander to call the police it completely freaked out the bitey old man. Frisk wondered if he had a criminal record. It wouldn't surprise her. 

The old man begged the young woman not to press charges and shoved a stack of papers in her hands, announcing that he was giving her the skeleton monster. Before she could say anything, he was already shuffling down the block as fast as possible. Frisk considered chasing him down (it wouldn't be hard) but the monster on the ground took priority.

"Oh my god, are you alright??" Frisk asked, holding out her hand to help him stand up. The skeleton didn't answer, or take her hand. He continued to stare at Frisk with blank, dark sockets, jaw set in a sharp toothed grimace.

She pushed aside how unnervingly creepy it was and sat down on her knees, putting aside the stack of papers and holding up her hands placatingly. 

"I'm not going to hurt you, I promise. Please, I just want to help."

The skeleton still didn't move, but after a moment, two glowing red lights like pupils appeared in the darkness of his eye sockets. They traveled down to stare at his collar where a red light was blinking, signalling that the monster was fighting a command.

"Huh? ...oh...OH!" Duh! The last thing the old man had said was "stay still." All Frisk had to do was give a different order. She cleared her throat and said in the most authoritative manner she could, "You are allowed to move!"

The light on the collar blinked purple, but the skeleton stayed frozen in place. He looked at her with glowing pupils, his expression much the same but maybe a little... annoyed?

"What? What does purple mean?" Frisk asked. The skeleton rolled his eyelights but didn't answer, though apparently he was trying to, since the light blinked red again. 

"Uh...You are allowed to speak!" The light flashed purple. "What the…? I said, you are allowed to speak! Stop following that guy's commands!"

The collar continued to blink purple, which was rapidly becoming Frisk's least favorite color. What was wrong?! Was it set to another language or something? She pulled up a translation app on her phone. "Uh...Sprechen! Hablar! Mówić! Shuōhuà! Paroli! Labhair! Parler! Eakspay Atinlay!"

The only thing her tirade accomplished was to attract the attention of passersby, curious why someone was screaming at their monster in a bunch of different languages. She caught the eye of one person who graced her with a particularly baleful stare as they walked past, likely a fellow monster sympathizer angry to see a monster being abused by its owner. 

She groaned. "I'm so sorry. I don't know how these stupid collars work," she said to the monster. He stared at her with an only-slightly-less malevolent expression. After a moment, he gestured with his pupil-eyelights towards the stack of monster slave registration papers still lying on the ground where the man had dropped them. 

"Oh...oh!" She remembered, then, that some collars could be set to only allow commands from the owner. "Is that collar locked to only listen to your owner? Look up for yes, down for no."

The skeleton looked up, then continued staring balefully at her, his collar blinking red as he continually fought against its control. 

"That old man gave me a bunch of your papers but he didn't transfer ownership, did he?" It was a rhetorical question, but the skeleton looked up anyways. Frisk sighed. "Damn it. Well now what?"

The skeleton rolled his eyes.

"Sorry, that wasn't a yes/no question," she said. "Uh... I didn't really want to register as your owner, but I guess that's the only way, huh?"

He paused for a moment, then looked up. Right. The thought of owning someone made Frisk sick to her stomach, but what could she do? 

"There's a monster DMV about two miles that way, but my car is parked a few blocks away." Frisk pointed down the street. "Can I leave you here and come back with the car?"

The skeleton frantically looked downwards. 

"Right, right, that leaves you kind of vulnerable, huh." Frisk looked at the monster on the ground. He was a little shorter than her and considering that he was literally a skeleton, he probably wasn't super heavy. "Uh... Well, I guess I’ll have to carry you." She scooped up the papers and started bending down to pick him up, but stopped when she noticed his eyes were black again. "Oh, sorry! Is it okay if I pick you up? I promise, I'm gonna get that stupid collar to release you as soon as I can." She wasn't sure he was going to respond, but after a moment his red eyelights reappeared and tentatively moved upward. 

"Right. Okay, uh…" 

As gently as she could, Frisk scooped up the skeleton and set him on her shoulder, the pressure forcing a quiet grunt from him, which puzzled her because as far as she could tell, he didn't have lungs. To her surprise, his bones were warm to the touch and slightly soft. They were also a lot thicker than an actual human skeleton. He was heavier than Frisk had expected, but not so much that it was impossible to carry him. The fact that he was frozen in place and not dead weight made it a lot easier. 

The walk to her car was probably the strangest experience of Frisk's adult life. To say that she and her reluctant passenger attracted a little attention would be an understatement. Every single person on the damnably busy sidewalk stared at them. Some were polite enough to quickly look away but most of them ogled unabashedly at the spectacle of someone lumbering down the street with a monster flung over their shoulder. A few people laughed outright and one particularly rude asshole actually had the nerve to pose for a selfie. The threadbare hoodie, t-shirt, and shorts the skeleton monster was wearing did little to pad his bones, which dug painfully into Frisk's shoulder the longer she went. Absently, she noticed that he didn't have any shoes on. The bones of his feet were all scuffed up. It looked painful. 

"I'm so sorry, this is probably very uncomfortable for you," She said to the skeleton. "We're almost there. It's just, like, two more blocks."

The two of them were only a few feet from Frisk's car when, in an excruciatingly ironic development, they encountered the wrath of a rather dimwitted yet aggressively passionate monster sympathizer walking by. The woman, who looked to be in her forties and sported a very ‘I demand to speak to the manager’ haircut, was outraged by the wanton display of cruelty before her. 

"You put that monster down, RIGHT NOW!" she screamed.

"No, no you don't understand," Frisk tried to say, "he's stuck-"

"Unhand him or I swear, I am calling the police! There are  _ laws _ !"

"I'm not hurting him!" 

"Liar! I can see scratches and cracks all over him! People like you make me  _ sick _ ! How dare you do that to a completely defenseless monster?!"

"That wasn't m-" Frisk started to protest, but at this point the woman apparently decided that calling the police would take too long and it was time to take justice into her own hands. In an abominably misguided attempt to save the skeleton from his abuser, she kicked Frisk in the leg, smacking into her left shin and knocking her foot out from under her. As someone who struggled to balance on one foot while standing perfectly still and not carrying a skeleton monster, she had no hope of remaining standing. Frisk felt herself falling forward and was flooded with that terrible, icy sensation of knowing you're about to have a violent encounter with the ground. In an act of heroism and selflessness worthy of legend, she threw all the movement she could into making sure the side of her body not holding the skeleton would hit the pavement first. She tightened her grip on him with one arm and reached out with the other to brace for impact.

Apparently her upper arm strength was worse than she had thought (though to her credit, she had been carrying something heavy for twenty minutes) because the last thing Frisk remembered was a very close look at an interesting crack in the sidewalk, and then blackness. 

\---------------

Sans was pretty sure the screaming woman ran away immediately after knocking the other human unconscious, but he had landed facing the opposite direction and couldn't turn his head to see. 

A minute ago, as he was being paraded down the street, completely paralyzed and hanging off the shoulder of yet another new owner while other humans laughed and took pictures, Sans was certain his life couldn't possibly get any worse. The universe had apparently taken the sentiment as a challenge, because now he was lying on the ground, halfway on top of an unconscious human and with a toe bone that really fuckin' hurt from where it had slammed into the concrete. It was probably broken, but again, he couldn't turn his head to see.

Pedestrian traffic, which had been inconveniently heavy for the entire journey, had now almost completely dried up. The nearest human headed their way was walking several large dogs, and Sans prayed to the stars that the human under him would wake up before they both got peed on. Equally bad, the human with the dogs might assume Sans was somehow responsible for the incapacitation of his owner. Stars, he hoped she wasn't dead. Ordinarily, he'd be thrilled to see any human get dusted, but right now he needed her alive. The fact that Sans very clearly couldn't move would do no good in court, where monsters rarely received even the meager rights to fair trial supposedly bestowed to them by law. 

Sans concentrated, trying to feel the presence of the human's soul. Ordinarily, he would be able to see it as clearly as a star in the night sky, but the fucking control collar was set to suppress almost all of his magic. To his relief, he found the human’s soul after a few moments of searching. Huh. You didn't see red determination souls very often. She was still alive, but hurt; probably concussed, if he remembered anything about animal brains correctly. Fortunately for this owner, Sans' previous one had kept a small channel of his magic unlocked specifically for healing, which he had forced the monster to use on his disgusting bunions. Sans was less than proficient in healing magic, especially when being chronically underfed and healing from his own injuries, but the stupid man never gave him a chance to explain that; not that it would have mattered. At least the involuntary use of what little healing ability he had had meant that the monster was now more practiced than ever before.

Trying to ignore the pain in his foot and disconcerting awkwardness of his frozen position, Sans focused on his own soul and generated a strand of green healing magic, which he stretched in the direction of the human's head. It took a few tries before he made the connection, but eventually he was able to find the area that had sustained the most injury. 

_ Boss could do this so much better _ , he thought as he worked. The subsequent pang of sadness broke his concentration and Sans mentally cursed as he searched again for the connection.  _ Don't think about him now. Focus. This idiot clearly has no experience with monsters. You finally have a shot at escape and finding Pap, but first you need this oddly attractive dumb human to unfreeze the fucking collar.  _ Wait a minute...what the hell was that last part?? Sans imagined shaking his head to clear it and focused on healing. After a minute of effort, the completely hideous and not attractive human under him finally started to stir. She groaned and slowly raised a hand to her head. 

"Ow..." she mumbled, shakily pushing herself off the ground. At this point she must have noticed the weight of the skeleton monster laying halfway on top of her, because she turned her head around to look at Sans. Upon seeing him, her ~~beautiful~~ **dull** amber eyes lost their lethargic glaze and took on an expression of panic.

"Oh my god! Are you okay??" she said, carefully lifting Sans' rigid body as she worked her way into a sitting position.

Sans answered "yes," with his eyes, relieved that the collar did not seem to recognize this as a lie, despite the fact that one of his toes was almost certainly broken. 

"Oh thank God. What was that lady's problem?! I'm trying to  _ help _ you! Seriously! There's a group I heard about who might help us, I heard they rescue monst-" 

The human suddenly cut herself off, clapping a hand over her mouth. Wow, she had really pretty lips...No! Bad skele! They were very, very ugly and completely unkissable gross human lips! What was wrong with him?!

She looked up and down the street, as though checking if anyone had been listening. At this point, the guy walking his dogs had reached them, but even if he had been paying attention, there was no way he could have heard anything over the music thumping loudly in his headphones. As it was, he didn't so much as spare a glance for the injured human and frozen monster lying on the sidewalk. Typical fucking human.

"Hang on, I'll make room in the car," said the ugly, repulsive human woman. She carefully laid Sans on the ground before struggling to her feet and gathering up the scattered mess of registration papers. A minute later, she had the back door of the car open and returned to pick him up. 

Either she was not completely healed from the concussion or just naturally very clumsy, because as she pushed Sans into the car feet first, the beleaguered skeleton could only watch in helpless terror as the edge of the doorframe rapidly approached his face.

_ *thump* _

"OH MY GOD! I AM SO SORRY!" 

Sans silently vowed that before he escaped, he would make time to kill this human. 


	3. The Monster DMV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frisk and Sans have a very awkward car ride to the government office that handles monster registration, which everyone calls the "Monster DMV" (for non-American readers, DMV stands for 'Department of Motor Vehicles' and you have to go there to register your car or get a license and everyone hates it because there are always super long lines)

Fitting the skeleton into the backseat of her economy hatchback was harder than Frisk had anticipated. It wasn't that the monster was large, he was actually pretty small, but the way he was frozen in place made it awkward. Apparently the collar had taken the command to "hold still" extremely literally; the monster couldn't even bend his arms and legs. The back seat of her car wasn't quite wide enough for his rigid form to fit lengthwise, and it wasn't as if she could just prop him up sideways; that seemed like it would be super uncomfortable. 

Eventually, Frisk managed to fold down the back seats and push enough trash out of the way to make a flat surface big enough for the skeleton to sit in the same pose he had been in when the old guy yelled the command. She couldn't exactly buckle him in so she'd just have to be extra careful while driving. Frisk was so careful, in fact, that she paid much more attention to the road than to what she was saying, treating her literal captive audience to an unfiltered stream of verbalized thoughts.

"Okay, right now we're going to the government-monster-department-office-thing or whatever it's called to get you unlocked. Uh- I mean the collar. Can't unlock  _ you _ , that'd be silly. ...heheheh, after all, that would take  _ skeleton  _ key, wouldn't it? 'Ba-dum tshh!' ...Sorry, was that joke offensive? It was, wasn't it. Sorry.

"In all seriousness, I want to make it clear that I do not believe in monster enslavement. I mean, I believe it _exists_ , you know, obviously, haha. But what I'm trying to say is I don't _believe_ believe it, you know? I'm not a slave owner and I didn't even _want_ to be a slave owner, but when we go into the building I'm gonna have to act like I'm totally stoked to be your new owner, because then they'll give _me_ control of the collar and I can let you move around and stuff. I _promise_ I'm not gonna make you do anything, okay? Just play along until we can get out of there and then we'll go somewhere and talk about what we're gonna do long-term cause I wanna help any way I can _._ I mean… it's the least I can do to make-up for everything my species has done to yours, right? 

"Urghhhh. God, this whole slavery thing is so messed up. I still can't believe it. There are dystopian novels about this kind of thing! I know humans are flawed, but we regressed two whole centuries backwards in less than a year. People don't understand that history repeats itself  _ every time. _ They're like 'Oh, this time it's different,' but it's really not; it's not different just because this time it's happening to you and you can justify it because you're intimately aware of the issues instead of looking back in a history textbook of a bunch of people you can't even remember the names of. Everybody thinks they're special and what happened to other people won't happen to them- but that's what the people in history books thought, too, and it's what people are gonna think when they look back on what's happening now. Tch. 

"Hey, maybe this'll make you feel better; I don't know how much you know about human history, but humans have been enslaving each other for pretty much all of the time we've been alive. It's not something personal against monsters; we're terrible to other humans, too. Yeah, there've been some nice, matriarchal civilizations that didn't have slaves and everyone got along and they all… ate nuts and fruits, or something, but they were pretty much wiped out every time by these violent, patriarchal societies that would just come in and be like 'Let's make this place more terrible and get rid of all the happy peacefulness.' God... _ screw _ the Patriarchy. I don't know how it was with you guys in the Underground, but up here women weren't even allowed to vote in America until like...1918 or something?** Wow, I should really know that. That's the public school system for you; all I remember is that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell and I'll take that knowledge to my grave."

\-----------------

If a genie had appeared and given Sans a wish to kill one human he wanted, wherever they were, he would have chosen this one. Nevermind that this particular human was currently piloting the car he was in; he'd risk dying in a crash ten times over just to make this human shut the FUCK up. She could at least have turned the radio on; even the worst music in the world would have been better than this one-sided barrage of military-grade drivel. It was bad enough being frozen in place, sliding around in a small sea of empty soda cans and cellophane wrappers; it was infinitely worse being forced to listen to a human yap about how it was apparently okay for humans to enslave monsters because they enslaved other humans, too, so at least the injustice was fair. Wow, that was a hell of an oxymoron, wasn't it? Fair injustice. Poetic and stupid.   
It didn't matter what the human said about how they "just wanted to help" and "won't ever use the collar, I promise"; Sans had heard it enough times to never believe it again. That had been one of the dumbest mistakes in his life, and one he didn't plan on repeating. What was that human expression? "Fool me once, shame on you; Fool me twice and now I've been double-fooled," or something like that. He'd never felt like the phrase was worth devoting to memory. 

Over the past eight years, Sans had come to realize that the only thing about a human that really mattered to a monster was whether they were smart or stupid. This human was definitely the latter. Their unchecked rant about the plight of monsterkind only further exemplified how seriously out of their depth they were. This human was a scared little kid floating in the deep end of a swimming pool, and they were the best shot he’d had at escape in years. He just had to wait for the right moment.

Sans' machinations were interrupted by the shrill squeak of rubber on metal as the car suddenly braked. The vehicle screeched to a dead stop in a matter of seconds; subsequently creating a force of inertia that sent the monster careening into the back of the seats in front of him. The worst part was that he landed directly on his broken toe again. If Sans could talk, he would have had some choice words for the driver. As it was, all he could do was redouble his efforts to think of a way to escape that involved collateral damage in the form of a specific annoying  ~~ yet strangely attractive human. ~~ No, "annoying" wasn't nearly a strong enough adjective for what he'd been through today. Exasperated? Aggravated? "Pissed off?"    
Through the waning daze of blunt force trauma, he heard the human shout, "My bad! I thought that street was one-way. They really should put up better signs, but nevermind; are you okay? Oh, right, you can't answer me. Uh… well, we're almost there, so you should be able to move again soon. Just hang tight, okay?"   


\-------------

"You want some help with that?" a man asked Frisk as she carried the skeleton into the government building. The offer was tempting, but the man gave off a bad vibe, like he was going to take the monster and run. Frisk had heard of that kind of thing happening; she specifically remembered it because she had been angry that the news was referring to monster kidnapping as "theft." 

"Uh… No, thank you. I got it."

The man looked a little disappointed, which only furthered her suspicions. "You sure?"

"Yeah, yeah, it's fine; just gotta make it up to the third floor, right? That's what it says on the directory."

"You sure? That's pretty far."

"Well… there’s an elevator, right?" 

The man pointed to the left. "Yeah, but it's all the way on that side of the building."

Ah, crap. "Well, thanks for the directions," Frisk said cheerfully, and headed off towards where the man had pointed before he could say anything else. To be honest, she wasn't sure she'd make it to the office. The skeleton wasn't  _ super _ heavy, but she'd already carried him all the way back to her car and then she had to park on the far end of the building's parking lot. Her arms were getting dangerously tired. Not only that, but the spot where the old man had bitten her was really starting to hurt now that the adrenaline of their legendary fight had worn off. Looking closely at the wound for the first time, she realized it was more serious than she had originally thought. The old man had apparently unhinged his jaw like a snake because there were spots where the skin was broken on the top and underside of her forearm. She should probably get a tetanus booster. Wow, she hoped this wasn't how the zombie apocalypse got started.

Frisk soon noticed that she and her unwilling piggyback-buddy were getting more than a few stares from human and monsterkind alike as they semi-successfully navigated the bureaucratic labyrinth. A few of them snickered, and one monster bumped the monster next to her with her elbow and pointed.

"Do they know you?" Frisk whispered to the skeleton, briefly forgetting that the entire reason they were here was because he couldn't speak or move. That didn't stop her from digging the hole a little deeper, though. "Wait, is that racist to be like 'all monsters know each other?' Oops. Sorry." 

As they got further into the building, however, her thoughtless comment turned out to be correct. A dog-shaped monster laughed loudly and literally barked, "Hey Sans! How's it  _ hanging?  _ HAHA!" 

Was that the skeleton's name? He wasn't saying anything, of course, but he started to feel warmer in her arms. Frisk saw in a passing mirror that his cheekbones had a rosy flush. Huh. She wasn't sure whether that meant he was embarrassed or angry, probably both. Even without being able to talk, she got the distinct impression that he wanted to kill everyone in here and then her; possibly not in that order.

They continued to receive derisive attention all the way until they reached the Department of Monster-whatever. To Frisk's infinite relief, there was no line. She walked right up to the front desk where a woman was trying unsuccessfully to staple a thick stack of paper. When she saw Frisk standing behind the counter, she paused in her endeavor long enough to say, "Chucky over there will help you," then resumed battling the office supplies.

Before Frisk could ask where exactly "Chucky" was, a very tall, excited young man ran over to her.

"O-M-G! That's a skeleton monster, right? They're SUPER rare," he said, as if the monster on her shoulder was a high-value trading card. He waved for Frisk to follow him. "C'mon, we can get you registered or whatever over here." 

She followed the chipper youth into a room filled with green curtained stalls, each containing a couple of regular chairs, a rolling stool, and a desk with a computer and some other equipment Frisk didn't recognize. It distinctly reminded her of a phlebotomy lab, the place where you go to have blood samples taken for testing. Chucky gestured for her to have a seat.

"Uh…" she stammered, unsure of what to do with the monster she was carrying.

After a moment, Chucky noticed her hesitation. "Oh, you can put your monster down, it's fine."

It was the first time Frisk had heard someone call the skeleton "your monster." It sent a sickening chill down her spine and she gave an involuntary shudder. 

"No," she said resolutely, "I'm not putting him on the ground." 

The youth looked down and considered the laminated tile floor for a moment. "Yeah, I don't blame you. Who KNOWS what kind of crap has been spilled in here." He snapped his fingers as an idea came to him. "Hold on, I'll be right back." He ran to the front of the room, almost colliding with a woman leading a large bear monster on a chain.

"Watch it!" She snapped. 

"Sorry, ma'am!" Chucky said. "What can I do for you?"

The woman pointed at the bear monster. "I think the collar is malfunctioning. He's not listening to what I say and it keeps getting worse."

"Okay, well, I'll be with you in just a few minutes," Chucky said, and waved towards one of the stalls. "Please have a seat." 

He ran out of the room, then reappeared less than twenty seconds later, pushing a squeaky-wheeled gurney. 

"There," he said, stopping next to Frisk. "You can put him on this."

The gurney looked like it had been bought at the liquidation sale of a particularly thrifty hospital that had been put out of business by a series of lawsuits following the lethal failure of cheap equipment; that is to say, the gurney looked rickety. But the linen sheet covering it seemed clean enough, so Frisk gently lowered the frozen monster onto it, making sure to put him down right-side-up.

Chucky plopped down on the rolling stool by the desk and logged into the computer. "You got paperwork?"

Frisk reached into her back pocket and took out the tightly rolled stack of papers the bitey, hopefully-not-zombie old man had thrown at her. She handed them to Chucky. He smoothed them out as best he could, then flipped through a few pages before finding the one he needed.

"Here we go, 'Monster ID Form.'" He typed in a long string of numbers and letters, having to repeatedly look back and forth between the paper and the computer. "The new collars have QR codes," he remarked off-handedly, "but that one looks like an old model, maybe even first-gen." 

Frisk looked at the skeleton monster, noting that the lights in his eyes had gone out again. "Hey," she said gently, resisting the urge to put her hand on his shoulder, "You doing okay?" 

His eyes stayed dark, so she figured he was probably not going to respond. Not that she blamed him; this whole thing must suck so bad. But a few seconds later, the red dots in his eye sockets reappeared. He stared at Frisk with keen intensity, then looked up. 

"Pfff," she scoffed good-naturedly, "Yeah, you know what? I don't believe you. But don't worry, we should have you unfrozen soon-"

"Holy CRAP!" Chucky shouted. "Do you know who this monster is??"

Frisk frowned. "What? No, I just met him. Why, what's wrong?"

Chucky pointed to the computer screen. "That's _ 'Sans'. _ Apparently he was one of the most dangerous monsters in the war! He killed a LOT of humans."

Frisk felt the blood in her veins turn to ice. "What, really??" She knew he'd probably fought in the war but... "But he's so small!" 

Frisk could almost physically feel the heat of crimson eye-lights burning into the back of her head. She turned to see the skeleton giving her a positively murderous glare. Oops.

"Says here he's got a bunch of magical abilities like bigass- sorry,  _ large _ laser beams and using blue magic to grab people's souls," Chucky said enthusiastically, as though he were reading the stats of a powerful Yu-Gi-Oh monster. "Duuuuude, he's like,  _ mega _ -dangerous. Says here he's suspected in the death of one owner and they think he's been used by big crime bosses or whatever to kill more people. Where did you even get him??"

"Uh…" This was a lot to process. "Some old dude bit me and gave him to me so I wouldn't sue him," Frisk said.

Chucky full on guffawed and swiveled on the stool to face her. "Bro, that's fu _-_ _freaking_ hilarious!" Suddenly, his expression became more subdued. "But seriously, that monster is not a fluffy little pet. You should sell him to the police or military; they're always buying powerful monsters and you'll get a _lot_ of money."

Frisk didn't know what to say. 

"Uh…"   


\-----------

And there it was, Sans thought. Another do-gooder human that was all for monster rights until they were reminded of the war; you know, that crucial little detail of how less than ten years ago, he and the other monsters had popped up on the surface world and started slaughtering humans. Sans had been through this a few times before; a human would try to "save him" by buying him from someone worse (or in this case, accepting him as a weird bribe), but then they learned what he'd done and couldn't get rid of him fast enough.    
He would never admit how much that hurt. He didn't know why it did, but it hurt every time, and he was sold to the next buyer hating humans even more. It was infuriating. The damn sentiment was blatantly hypocritical; after all, he  _ had _ killed humans in the war and still tried to whenever possible. Humans  _ should _ be scared of him, and boy did this human look scared. Good. That was good. He hated her. He wanted her to be scared.

After the anti-slavery speech in the car, he was pretty sure that his new owner didn't have any direct connections to people who bought monsters, so it was probably going to be back to the public auction house with ol' Sansy. He wondered if they'd keep him frozen until then. It was the smart thing to do. She'd want to sell him as soon as she could-

"Thanks, but no. He's not for sale." 

Sans blinked in surprise at the human. ...Was this really happening? 

"You sure?" the tall human asked. "Cause I wouldn't, if I were you."

_ Shut up, kid, shut up!  _ Sans shouted in his head. If Dummy over here actually wanted to keep him, they'd have to reset the collar to recognize a new owner; which is exactly what he'd been hoping for. 

When the control collars were first deployed, they had a small problem where immediately after an owner transfer, they briefly lost power. This gave the monster a few precious seconds of free will. Later models had fixed this problem but to his infinite shame and regret, Sans had been one of the first monsters captured, and his collar had never been replaced. In previous transfers his owners had known about the flaw and took precautions in the form of chaining him down to a chair and pointing a gun in his face while they smeared their gross blood on the collar sensor. This bean-pole kid who treated monsters with the go-get'em attitude of a Pokemon trainer didn't look like he'd been trained on how to deal with first gen collars.

"Yes. I'm sure," the human said firmly. "What do I need to do to get control of his collar and let him move?"

The kid shrugged. "Alrighty then, it's your funeral," he mumbled. He handed her a pen and pointed to various parts of the paperwork. "Sign here and here and put your information here."

He picked up a box on the desk and shook out one of those one-use pointy needle thingies. "To assign a new owner, you have to put a drop of your blood in that little hole in the collar."

The human looked horrified. "Wait, really?"

"It's just how the magic works, don’t ask me." The kid held out the needle. "You wanna stick your finger or should I?"

The human looked unsure. "Uh… You better do it."

"Okay," the kid said. He reached into another box and pulled out a pair of nitrile gloves. "You gonna be one of those people who faint at the sight of blood?"

Sans always loved it when humans did that, but right now he was relieved to hear her say, "No, no, I'm fine with needles and blood, I just don't know if I can do it to myself."

"Okay, give me your hand- oh, wait, I almost forgot!" The kid sprung to his feet and picked up what looked like a barcode scanner from the desk. "Gotta use this on the collar to unlock owner transfer first; otherwise people could just transfer monsters whenever they wanted, you know?" 

Sans stared maliciously at the boy as he held the device up to his collar, which gave a long beep signaling it was ready to accept a blood sample. The other human also got out of the chair and stood next to the gurney. The kid picked up the needle from where he'd left it on the desk and gestured for Sans' new owner to give him her hand. Sans struggled not to grin. This was the moment he’d been waiting for. The skeleton readied himself as much as he could without actually moving his body. Freedom here we come!

The needle was only a centimeter away when, in perfect dramatic timing, there was a thunderous roar followed by loud crashing sounds and a woman screaming. Sans was faced towards the wall and couldn't see what was going on, but judging from the reactions of the two humans in front of him and the familiar voice of Freddy the bear, he could pretty well guess. 

Bean-pole immediately put his long legs to use and sprinted away. To Sans' enormous surprise, the other human didn't. Instead, she frantically grabbed another needle from the box on the desk and pricked her finger, then found the sensor on his collar and smeared blood on it. The collar gave a long beep signaling that it had accepted the sample and another short beep to confirm that it had started processing it.

"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon," she muttered. "How long will it take until you can move ag-" The human stopped mid-word as she looked up in terror at something right behind Sans. 

"Well, well, well, if it isn't  _ Sans the skeleton _ ," rolled the deep voice of Freddy the bear. "What's the matter, buddy? You stuck? No bones or blue magic?" The bear chuckled darkly. "Heheheh. Well, I guess this is my lucky day. I almost feel bad cause no one else is here to see it. There are a  _ lot _ of monsters who'd love to see you dust." He cracked his knuckles. "Say goodnight, Sansy."

Damn this first gen collar. Yeah, it was the only one with the shutting-off problem, but at least the new ones processed blood faster. He had been so close to freedom and now he was going to die at the paws of Freddy the bear.  _ Freddy the  _ **_fucking_ ** _ bear.  _

Sans' figured his final thought should probably be something meaningful, so as he heard the  _ *whoosh* _ of enormous claws, he pictured himself and his little brother together; not as they had been in later years, but how they used to be, before things got bad. But the claws never hit him. Instead, he heard the human scream and felt her body slam into the back of the gurney, as, for the second time that day, she took a blow meant for him.

Freddy growled. "Outta my way, twerp!"

The human shouted between pained gasps, "You… You leave him alone!"   
"The hell do you want to protect Sans for, dumbshit?" Freddy asked. Apparently he wasn't interested in the reply because a moment later there was another  _ *whoosh* _ and a heavy thud as the human went sailing across the room. Sans could just barely see where her body landed out of the corner of his eye socket. She wasn't screaming anymore, which was probably a bad sign. 

Before Freddy could swipe at Sans again, the sound of more humans coming into the room got the bear’s attention. Sans heard him run in that direction, roaring. 

The collar gave a short beep, meaning that it had reached the halfway point of processing the transfer of ownership. It wasn't done yet, but the previous owner's commands had been erased and default commands were restored, which gave him permission to move again. With immense relief, Sans felt his body return to his control. He turned around to look at the scene.

The room was in shambles. Several curtains had been knocked down and paperwork was scattered everywhere. The lady who had come in with the bear monster lay motionless on the floor. The tall kid was nowhere to be seen. At the room's entrance, Freddy was battling four security guards and seemed to be winning.

It was utter chaos.    
_ Perfect _ . 

The collar gave a long, loud beep as it finished processing the transfer of ownership, then the light went out. The power was off. Without wasting a beat, Sans grabbed the collar and ripped it in half, sighing with relief as he felt air hit his neck bones for the first time in years. This was it. He was free. The skeleton's magic was low after months of being suppressed, but after a few frustrating seconds he managed to gather enough to teleport a short distance. He figured he'd aim for the roof of the building and stay there until his magic had recovered enough to teleport further away, which should only take a couple of minutes. 

Laughing maniacally, Sans hopped off the gurney onto the floor. He had to be standing when he teleported; he'd landed tailbone-first after trying it while sitting and didn't feel like experiencing that pain again. He was just about to make the jump when a gasping sound got his attention. A few feet away, the human - _ his _ human- was lying on the ground. She coughed pitifully as she struggled to take in air; a condition which probably had something to do with the massive claw wounds across her chest and neck. 

….Whatever. Time to go. It's not like it mattered to Sans if this human died; he had spent the last hour-and-a-half hoping for this exact thing, hadn't he? Besides, maybe she wouldn't die. Maybe another human would come in and save her.

Sans looked back at the door, where five more security guards were struggling to subdue Freddy. The bear had already KO'd three of them and didn't show any signs of stopping.

…Okay, so maybe another human wasn't going to get here in time. But that's fine, he just needed to forget about this dumb, compassionate human and leave while he still could. It was her own damn fault if she died because she made the idiotic decision to protect a killer like him. It wasn't like he'd  _ asked _ her to save his life ...twice. 

Ah, shit, now she was looking at him. 

"Please…" the human gasped between gurgling breaths. Then she lay limp on the floor, unmoving.

Fuck. FUCK.  **FUUUUUCK.**

Sans gave a loud, frustrated growl. "WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME?!" 

With no small amount of regret, Sans released the magic he'd gathered to teleport and focused on healing magic instead. He knelt in the disgusting puddle of blood next to the human and put his hands over the wounds on her neck and chest. A bright green glow emanated from beneath his palms as tissues slowly began to knit back together. It took him a whole minute to stop the bleeding; several large blood vessels had been hit, and one was torn almost completely in half. 

As soon as Sans was reasonably certain the human would live, he got back to his feet and started gathering magic for a teleport. Okay, time to get out of h-

* **BZZZZT** !*

A deafening electric buzz shot through the skeleton's nonexistent ears as an overpowering force usurped control over his body and magic. He seized up and fell face-first onto the floor. His skull bounced sharply off the laminate tile as he landed, once again slamming his god damned broken toe into the ground. As he lay there, groaning, he saw one of the guards holding a mass-control beacon. It was a device made to take down an entire group of monsters at once. Sans was intimately familiar with the machines; after all, he had been one of the monsters they used to design it.

For the second time that day, Sans found himself on the ground, completely unable to move. At least this time he could still talk, an ability he immediately put to use by screaming, "FUCKIN, _ AGAIN?!  _ **_REALLY?!??_ ** _ "  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *I looked it up: the 19th amendment giving women the right to vote was ratified on August 26, 1920. So hey, at least I wasn't that far off!
> 
> NEXT UP: Frisk goes to the monster detention center where Sans is being held. He can finally move again and has been having fun annoying the employees. The two finally get a chance to talk.


	4. An Especially Vindictive Goldfish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Sans POV) Roughly a day later, Sans is being held in a cell at the "Monster Detention Center," colloquially referred to as "The Monster Pound." This is a government facility where confiscated, lost, and ownerless monsters are kept temporarily. Sort of like an animal shelter, but a little more deplorable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was originally going to have each chapter be half Frisk's POV and half Sans', but this chunk is big enough to be its own chapter and there's no point in sitting on it while I finish the rest. If you like Frans stuff, check out [Songfell](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23348839) by my friend Ikustioa. We're turning it into a dramatic reading on Youtube with voice actors, arts, and everything! [Watch the trailer and Parts 1-3 (Part 4 coming soon) here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIia4GLWOtQ)

With a final, deep scratch, Sans finished the drawing he had been carving into the clear plexiglass wall that made up the front side of his small holding cell at the monster detention center. The container was made of pathetically flimsy material, but the collar made escape impossible; he had been commanded to stay in the cell without any attempts to escape and, after a few disturbing remarks to passing humans, been forbidden from making noise. Technically, he had also been told not to damage the cell in any way, but was adding some art to the drab walls really "damaging" them? No it wasn't; he successfully convinced himself and thereby the collar that what he was doing was making the cell _better_. Loopholes were handy like that. Intention was everything in magic and he exploited it whenever possible.

Sans smirked as he proudly admired the various words and images he'd carved into the plastic and plexiglass with his claws. This facility might have him and several other monsters lined up like animals at a petshop, but he was a little more vindictive than the average goldfish; even if the most he could accomplish right now was petty vandalism.

The sound of approaching footsteps interrupted Sans' musings on what to draw next. He watched through the clear plexiglass wall as a detention center employee led another human down the row of confiscated and ownerless monsters. They stopped in front of his cell and the human pointed at him. It was difficult to see through all the improvements he'd made to the clear plexiglass, but after a moment Sans recognized the human that had made the last thirty-two hours of his life even more miserable than usual. Her and her stupid, infectious martyr-complex. He honestly hadn't expected to see her again. She had been pretty damn adamant about not wanting a monster slave, and yet here she was collecting him like a lost dog at the pound. 

The center employee cursed as she noticed the masterful additions Sans had made to the walls of his cell. His mouth curled into a terrifying sharp-toothed grin, a single golden tooth glinting under the fluorescent lights. It gave the monster no small amount of pleasure to know that the employee would be in hot water for letting the damage happen on her watch. She had been pretty lax about doing her rounds, which were supposed to be done every fifteen minutes but had happened only half as frequently, and always with her observation impeded by the distraction of an ever-present smartphone. He'd never been able to do this much art before someone noticed. 

Sans' satisfaction doubled at seeing the horrified look on the other human's face as she took in the gruesome image he had drawn on the front wall. He was particularly proud of that one. It really captured how a human being impaled on a bed of giant, pointy bones looked in real life. It had blood splatters and all kinds of other details; if you looked carefully you could even see that the human had shit their pants as they so often did after dying. Sans had found that phenomen endlessly amusing. It had seriously grossed out P- Boss, which only made it that much funnier. 

The bittersweet memory immediately soured Sans' mood and he silently growled, staring down the center employee as she angrily punched in the code to open the cell door. It beeped and she flung it open.

"OUT. NOW." 

Out of habit, Sans fought to resist the command as his body moved against his will. A light on his new collar flashed red and gave a pleasant chime." _Resistance detected_ " said a sing-song female voice, sounding exactly like the robot that answers when you call a company and reach the automated menu. But instead of saying something like "For help activating a new card, press two," the collar cheerily said " _Applying mild corrective shock_ " and zapped him right in the fucking neck. If he could talk, Sans would have had some choice words for the people behind the new collar's design. _Mild, my_ **ass** _!_

The collar obediently piloted his body to stand in front of the two humans. His owner looked as adorably out-of-her-depth as ever, while the center employee looked absolutely murderous. That cheered the monster up a little. He gave her a smug grin and winked. The woman nearly screamed in rage and swung her slow, fleshy hand at his face. Sans easily dodged, leaning out of the way without even moving his feet. The woman's unanswered swing nearly unbalanced her and she had to stumble to catch herself. Sans cackled with laughter- or at least he would have if the collar wasn't keeping him from making noise. As it was, he just looked like an especially vicious mime.

"Sonnuva-" the employee cursed. She grabbed a flashlight from her belt and raised it to strike him. 

"Stop!" the other human shouted, jumping between the two of them. To Sans' disappointment, the employee managed to abort her swing just in time to narrowly avoid smashing her flashlight directly into the other human's neck. The latter stumbled clumsily as she fought to remain upright, which she somehow accomplished despite initially looking entirely floor-bound. As soon as she regained her balance she wheeled on the employee. 

"What the HELL is wrong with you?? You can't do that!"

The employee backed up a little, looking stricken. "I get it, I get it; Sorry for hitting your monster."

"He's not m- whatever, just tell him he can move."

The employee raised an eyebrow. "He's your monster, ain't he?"

"....Right. Uh…Yeah." The human turned to Sans, who waited eagerly for her to release him. She almost certainly didn't know the right things to say to ensure he didn't immediately run off, or at least cause a little mayhem before being caught again. This could be his second chance.

"You can m-" the human started to say, but was interrupted by the employee. 

"What are you, crazy?! You can't just release him like that," the employee shouted. Sans imagined what it would feel like to break her neck. It would probably be very satisfying. Just… _CRUNCH_. 

The other human looked puzzled. "What? Why?"

The employee shook her head. "Why do I always gotta deal with the newbies?" she muttered under her breath. "You've never had a monster before, huh? Well, you're gonna need to learn a few basic rules if you don't want it to run away or cause mayhem. There's some info sheets at the desk."

The employee walked back towards the entrance. The human waved for Sans to follow her and started to walk away. When Sans remained where he was, she looked back, confused. He rolled his eyelights.

"You've got to say it out loud," the shelter employee said without even looking back at them.

"Right…" The human walked back to Sans, meeting his eyes for the first time since their unceremonious reunion. For a few seconds, he forgot to be mad. All he could think was that this human had the prettiest eyes he'd ever seen. They were like glowing pools of honey; golden without looking garishly yellow. He felt like he could stay lost in them for hours.

The rest of the human's expression was hard to read. There was a little fear there, which made sense, but after a moment, her brows softened and a corner of her mouth twitched upwards in a cautious smile. It distinctly reminded Sans of a happier time in the Underground; back when it was still safe for kids to be kids. That was the way Pap had looked at people when he was little, like he was hoping every new person would be his friend. 

The memory distracted Sans so much that he didn't notice the human had been getting closer until she was right in front of him. She briefly glanced back towards the employee, making sure they were out of earshot. 

"I'm sorry," she said quietly, "We'll talk soon, okay? When we're out of here. I..." she looked like she wanted to say more, but hesitated.

"You coming or what?" the center employee called from her desk.

The human jerked her head around. "Oh! Uh, yeah!" She gave Sans another plaintive look. "Sorry. I guess I have to… yeah… uh… Please don't fight it, I don't want you to get zapped. I'll turn that off as soon as I can, I promise." She looked sheepishly at the ground. "...Follow me."

* _chime* Command Accepted._

The human grimaced. She turned and walked towards the desk. Sans briefly considered resisting again just to spite her, but decided it wasn't worth it. He'd have plenty of chances to escape later.

At the front desk, the center employee gave the human a hefty stack of papers, including a manual for the specific model of control collar on Sans. He glanced at the cover. _Servent Ultrobae™ enhanced voice control with s-assist_

Fuck. He wasn't up to date on the newest collars, but _Servent_ was one of the first developers. Their collars had dominated the consumer market for a long time thanks to superior "loophole-catching" technology. And now, besides an annoying-ass speaker, they also included electrical shock. Perfect. It would be almost impossible to escape now. The person controlling the color would have to be a total novice to let that happen. 

….Actually, escape might still be on the table. 

The human was looking thoughtfully at the manual and info sheets. "Hey… it's possible to lock a collar to only listen to its owner's commands, right?" she asked the center employee.

Sans raised one brow-bone. Seriously?

The employee shook her head. "Well, yeah, but I wouldn't recommend it, especially since you don't have much experience. No one's gonna be able to stop him if you mess up, except the cops."

"Show me how to do it," the human said firmly, then after a moment added, "please."

Sans could hardly believe his luck. This was an incredibly stupid move on her part. Yeah, the _Servent_ collar would still have built in commands like "no attacking humans," but this freed up a lot of room for user-error.

The employee pointed to something in the manual and the human read it out loud. "Lock to owner command." 

_*chime* 'Command Lock' will allow only commands given by collar owner and law enforcement. This setting is not recommended. Proceed?_

"Proceed."

_*chime* Settings changed._

The employee waved towards the door. "There you go. Now, please leave before he finds a way to kill you. I've already gotta clean up the damn cell."

The human gave Sans a nervous glance. He shrugged.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NEXT CHAPTER CLUE: shoes  
>  _wHaaaT DoooEs iiiIiitt mEeeaAn?_


	5. UwU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frisk and Sans walk back to the car. Nothing significant happens.  
>  _Trigger Warning: near-death experience_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are two versions of this fic: the original reader-insert and a Frans adaptation. Most of it is the same, but a few things are different. Reader (gender-neutral) is awkward, unsure, impatient, really clumsy, loud, swears a lot, and cries easily. Sans hates them with a passion. Fanon Frisk (Frans, not UT) is a little more well-adjusted. Sans still hates her but _**dayumm** gurl, u sexy. ___  
> In previous chapters, I've written the reader-insert first and only made a few changes to dialogue and descriptions to better fit Frisk's personality (admittedly, Frisk probably would've handled the confrontation with the old man a little better but I couldn't bring myself to part with the line "heroically tackled the old man.") This time I actually wrote the Frans version of this chapter first, and there are some **big** differences in the interaction/conversation the protagonist has with Sans, so it’s worth reading both of them. [Ch5 Reader-Insert Version](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26851141/chapters/71508807)

The skeleton followed a few feet behind Frisk as they left the monster pound. She wanted to talk to him immediately, but considering the presence of several other people walking past the building and the likelihood of the skeleton's words being of the kind that draws attention, she decided to wait until they got back to her car. But that didn't mean _she_ couldn't talk to him. 

"My car is a few blocks this way, can you make it without shoes?" 

The skeleton looked at her impatiently and pointed to his closed mouth from which the answer was not forthcoming.

“Yeah, I know, I know. I promise I'm gonna turn that off when we get to the car, but the conversation we need to have is not something I want to do out here on the street. Can you walk there without shoes?" 

The skeleton waved his hand dismissively and rolled his eyelights, then looked up for "yes."

Frisk frowned. The more she looked at his scratched up feet, the more determined she became that he should not be walking around barefoot on the rough concrete. At least with fleshy, human feet there was some padding to cushion the bones and keep them from scraping on the ground. Frisk looked at the shoes she was wearing. The neon green trim and button clasps meant that these shoes weren’t the most stylish things ever; she had been in a rush to get to the monster detention center as soon as she could after being released from the hospital, and these were the spare pair she kept in the car. Garishness aside, the skeleton was a little shorter than her, right? He would probably fit her size. With a decisive nod, Frisk bent over and took off her shoes. She held them out to the bemused monster. 

"Sorry, I know they're not the best looking things. I'm gonna keep my socks on, but you can wear these if you want,” she said.

The skeleton looked uncertain, and possibly a little judgmental as he appraised her taste in fashion. He glanced between the shoes and Frisk's eyes a few times, before reluctantly taking the shoes. He put them on and, to Frisk's relief, they weren't too small. 

"Okay. My car is a few blocks this way." Frisk waved at him casually to follow and started walking down the street in her socks. She figured it was probably best to rein in the nervous rambling, so the unlikely pair walked in awkward silence all the way back to the car.

Frisk unlocked the car and popped open the door to the front passenger seat. She didn't tell the monster to get in, but she figured he'd understand. He fixed her with a spiteful glare that went unnoticed as she walked around the car and got into the driver's seat. She buckled the seatbelt, then looked over at the still empty passenger seat and the skeleton standing in front of it, casually examining his claws like he didn't even know she was waiting for him to get in. 

A stalemate then, huh? Fine. She had nothing better to do, anyway. It was also a good opportunity to look through the manual to see what counted as a command or not. She'd figured that saying something normal like "hop in" would count as a command, and it looked like she was right. She couldn't get around it by saying "please," either.

Outside, the skeleton remained standing, scratching idly at the paint of the car and growling at the occasional passerby. Frisk didn't know what to do. She didn't want to give a command, _especially_ since that would probably end with him resisting and getting shocked. What did he even gain by doing this? Was he scared of cars or something? 

After a moment of contemplation, Frisk realized that the monster _knew_ that she didn’t want to use the collar; so he was forcing her into a situation where she'd _have_ to do it. He actually _wanted_ her to use a command because he knew it would make her feel terrible. Nevermind that he'd probably get shocked again; he’d latch on to anything that gave him some semblance of control and a chance to screw over humanity. Frisk could relate to his stubbornness, but it was still frustrating because this whole song and dance was completely unnecessary. If he'd just get in, they could talk; and she'd make it clear that he _did_ have control over what happened to him now. That wasn't exactly a statement she could make in public.

What could she do? It was obvious that the skeleton was willing to wait outside all day long, if necessary.

Alright… if he was doing this to force her into using the collar, maybe the answer was to do the exact opposite. ...Hopefully, he'd still choose to stay and get in. 

Frisk cleared her throat. "You can talk and move, now," she said loudly.

The skeleton turned his attention back to her, looking surprised as the collar chimed,

_*chime* Command accepted_

"Okay," Frisk said, "now will you consider getting i- HEY!"

The moment he realized he could move, the monster took off running down the street. Frisk frantically unbuckled and scrambled out of the car. 

"Wait! Stop!" she called after him. Twenty yards away, she faintly heard the collar chime and watched the skeleton grind to a sudden halt. There was another chime and he fell to the ground, loudly yelling "OW! _FUCK!"_

"Oh, _crap_ ," she cursed, and started running towards him. "I didn't mean it! I'm so sorry! Are you okay??"

The skeleton turned around from where he had landed on the ground, hitting her with a glare so venomous it almost made Frisk trip. She caught her balance after a moment and closed the distance between them.

"It was an accident, I swear. I just shouted the first thing that came to mind." She held out a hand to help him get up. 

For a moment, they locked eyes again. The skeleton's face radiated malice. Frisk almost felt like she could melt under the intense heat of that glare. This person hated her and her kind more than life itself. If it weren't physically impossible, he'd have killed her already. 

But slowly...his expression started to soften. The hatred seeped away like water through a cheesecloth; burning red eyelights fading to a gentler glow. His perpetual grimace wavered, relaxing a tiny bit. He stared at Frisk like he was looking into her soul; seeing everything she was, with nothing hidden. For a few precious seconds, the two of them forgot about everything else. 

Then a car honked at them.

Frisk tried not to be disappointed when she looked back and the skeleton was scowling again. He unsurprisingly rebuffed her proffered hand; even going so far as to smack her hand away as he pushed himself to his feet.

He let out an exhausted sigh followed by a scornful scoffing noise. "Tch. You say 'sorry' a lot, ya know that?" he drawled in a deep, lazy accent. "It's pretty fuckin' annoying."

For a moment, Frisk was too surprised to respond. It's not like she had had a clear expectation of what the skeleton would sound like, but she hadn't considered that he'd sound like a hardened denizen of Brooklyn.

The car honked again, longer this time. The monster gave the driver the middle-phalange. Right. They should probably get out of the street.

Frisk gestured for the skeleton to follow her, then remembered she'd accidentally ordered him to ‘wait.’

“C’mon,” she said.

_*chime* Command accepted._

She turned and took a couple steps towards the sidewalk when suddenly, Sans grabbed her shoulders and yanked her backwards, catching her in a tight bear hug. Frisk barely had time to consider _what the_ **_hell_ ** _he was doing_ when a moment later, a huge school bus zoomed by right where she'd been standing. The enormous _whoosh_ of air from the passing vehicle nearly knocked them both over, but Sans managed to keep them upright. A second later, the bus was gone, and the two of them were left standing in the middle of the street in an awkward embrace. 

"Oh, my god," Frisk said in a shaky whisper, "That would've completely flattened me. Thank you." She noticed Sans' arms were still around her, and craned her neck to look at the skeleton. His eye-sockets were empty black voids again. "Uh… Sans?" 

The skeleton blinked, his red eye-lights reappearing. The moment he saw Frisk looking at him, his entire face flushed red from the bottom up. It was like watching the red of an old mercury thermometer rise, only super fast; as if the thermometer had been tossed into the magma of a really embarrassed volcano. He let go of her and stepped back, furiously wiping his arms like he'd touched something sticky. The sound of bone scraping on bone was bizarre.

Frisk snorted. "What, do you think I have cooties or something?"

He stopped and frowned, looking a little worried. "The hell's that?"

She waved her hand dismissively. "Eh, it's just an imagery disease kids think the other gender has. It's like, a playful game for girls to be like 'ew, boys have cooties' and vice versa."

Sans shook his head. "There's just no limit to weird fuckery with you humans."

A tiny Toyota Yaris gave a series of angry, high-pitched honks. 

"Oh, SHUT UP!" Sans yelled, earning more irate little honks.

Frisk checked for oncoming murder-buses, then tugged on Sans' sleeve and gestured to the sidewalk.

Thankfully, he followed her without protest. Once they were no longer in immediate danger of death, she turned to face him.

"Look," she said, "can we please just talk in the car? Give me just five minutes." 

The collar chimed. 

_*chime* Command not recognized. If this issue persists, please visit_ [ _servent.com_ ](http://www.servent.com) _or contact your local Servent representative._

The skeleton grinned. "Oops," he said, "Guess they didn't program that one in. Wanna try again?" 

"I didn't mean it literally," she complained. 

"Better watch what you say, then." He said with a lecherous smirk. "Cause if you get mad and yell _'Fuck me!',_ you're gonna get a lot more than you bargained for." He gave her a lewd wink.

Frisk wasn't sure if she'd ever felt this uncomfortable before in her entire life. "Um… Okay, won't do that. Thanks for the heads up."

He gave a small, subservient bow, peeking at her out of one eye. "Anything for you, _master._ "

She folded her arms and gave him an annoyed glare. "Okay, I know you're doing that on purpose." 

He straightened back up, smirking meanly at her and mirroring her folded arms. 

Frisk took a deep, steadying breath. "I get it; you don't like me, and I don't blame you. Humans suck. But you're not stupid; you _know_ I'm trying to help." She paused to consider the light foot traffic around them. It took a moment to figure out how to word what she wanted to say so that it wouldn't be interpreted as a command. "I’m not asking you to trust me, I'm just asking you to hear me out. But we can't talk out here. Okay?"

He shrugged. "Roll for persuasion."

Frisk blinked. Okay, add _‘knowledge of D &D’ _to the list of things she hadn't expected about the skeleton. She smiled. "My charisma is super low. Can this be an acrobatics check instead?"

The monster's expression flashed from sardonic grin to surprise, then back to a mischievous smirk. "Acrobatics? Seriously? This is textbook charisma."

Frisk grinned. "Yeah but my dex is +4."

He gave her a disbelieving look. "You? Really? I've known you less than two days and from what I've seen, I'd put you at a -5."

"Ah, c'mon. I just had a bunch of bad rolls."

"Bullshit. Now roll for persuasion."

"Okay, uh…" Frisk noticed a small pebble near her feet. She kicked it towards the skeleton. "Oh, look at that. A nat 20!"

"What?!" He bent over to look closer at the pebble, then flicked it with his finger.

"Hey!" Frisk shouted.

He grinned. "It was cocked." He looked at where the pebble was now. "Oh, too bad! A nat 1! That's a crit fail."

Frisk heard a couple walking past say, "What the hell are they talking about?" "I don't know, Gerald, just keep moving."

She pouted. "Can't I have advantage, or something?"

He scoffed. "Pfff, for what? Lookin' cute?"

She fluttered her lashes and said in the best uwu voice she could. "Pweez, mistow skeweton man. Gib widdle me a chwance."

Thankfully, the collar didn't pick up that last part as a command. Apparently the manufacturer hadn't accounted for uwu. She'd have to keep that in mind, though the idea of talking to the skeleton exclusively in uwu in order to avoid accidentally giving commands made her giggle.

Meanwhile, Sans was giving her a somewhat flustered look. His face was slightly red again. It was kind of adorable. "Uhh…”

"I'm Frisk, by the way." She held out her hand. This time, the monster took it. 

"Sans. Sans the skeleton," he said.

The bones of his hand were strangely warm and slightly soft, just like before. His fingers ended in sharp points, though he was careful enough to shake her hand without scratching her. Absently, Frisk wondered if the dangerous looking claws were an inconvenience in daily life. They probably snagged on sweaters and made it impossible to hold balloons without popping them.

She smiled. "Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Sans. Now, can I convince you to get in the stupid car? Or are you going to stand in the sun all day just to spite me? Cause I've been called many things, and stubborn is one of them." 

After a moment of consideration, Sans gave a dismissive, "Hmph," followed by, "Okay, let's make a deal. I play nice; what's in it for me?"

"Uhhh…" Frisk tried to think of what she could use to bribe him. "Are you hungry? We can get drive-thru."

His grin became more genuine. "Okay, but it's gotta be somewhere with fries. Grease City, as unhealthy as you can get."

"Sure! Whatever you want! Do you have a favorite place you like to go to?"

He gave her a flat look.

"Fair point. Okay, we're going to _my_ favorite burger place.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Frans version: "Damn it," Frisk cursed under her breath. "I'm so sorry- I didn't mean it, I swear! Are you hurt?"  
>  _Reader-insert: "Ah, SHIT!" you yelled. "Dude, I swear to god that was an accident! Are you okay?! I'm so fucking sorry"_


	6. Fast Food, Slow Burn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frisk and Sans talk while they're in the line for drive-thru, then they drive out of town and talk some more. We learn some of Sans' tragic, dark backstory.  
>  _Welcome to Dialogue City™, home of the world famous Chapter 6._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _There are enough hints that the reader should be able to figure out what happened in Sans' past, but it's frickin' hard to walk the line between 'boringly obvious exposition' and 'pretentiously cryptic' so lemme know if I overdid it with the mysteriousness._   
>  _I **highly** recommend carefully re-reading [the prologue](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28667298) if anything doesn't make sense. I changed a few sentences in it to make things more clear._   
> 

The trip to Burger Queen was largely uneventful, though Frisk was a little surprised by Sans' order of, "Six large fries; and drown 'em in mustard." 

She asked him about it while they waited in line. "You didn't want a burger or something? They've got chicken sandwiches, too, if you like that instead."

"Nah. I'm good with fries." He gave a disaffected look at her confused expression. "Don't look so surprised, almost no monsters eat meat; or any other gross shit that comes outta animals." He scrunched up his face, which looked really weird considering it was made out of bone. "Seriously, what's your fuckin' obsession with milk? It's like drinkin' piss. And eggs 'r just lil' round chicken turds."

"Ew, no!" Frisk cringed, suddenly feeling a lot less excited about her milkshake and sunny-side-up burger. "It's not like that at all!"

He raised an eyebrow judgmentally; more accurately, a bony approximation of an eyebrow.. "Really? Cause from what I can tell, they're all just things that come outta an animal if you squeeze 'em hard enough."

She energetically waved her hand to dispel the graphic mental imagery. "Okay, let me get this straight: monsters are all vegan?"

He shrugged. "Mostly. Didn't have any animals in The Underground, besides some rats and mice. Don't know if it was always that way or if we just ran out a long time ago. What we  _ did _ have was a fuckton of plants, and with magic you can turn that into any kind of food you want. So yeah, we had hamburgers; just not the ones made out of yer gross animal bits."

Frisk frowned lightly. "You've really never tried any real meat? Up here on the surface, I mean; not the meat made out of plants or whatever in the Underground."

"Oh no, I have." Sans gave her a meaningful look. "Over, and over, and over. I guess my reactions are pretty funny, cause they had a lot of fun makin' me do it." 

"...Oh," was all Frisk could say. 

They needed to talk, and they needed to do it somewhere no one else could possibly hear. Frisk had heard stories of monster-sympathizers getting spied on in their own homes, and God knows how many shifty government cameras and hidden microphones were hidden around town. She didn't know how much she believed in the whole "Big Brother is watching you" paranoia, but it would still be better to make sure. The only place nearby she could think of that would definitely be safe was a giant empty dirt lot right outside of town.

They were almost there when a car suddenly cut her off and she had to slam on the brakes, jerking the skeleton in the passenger seat hard against the seatbelt.

"Fuck!" he snapped, "Can't you drive, lady??"

Frisk briefly considered commanding the skeleton to poke himself in the eye-socket, but successfully resisted the temptation. Instead she decided to ask about something that had been nagging at her.

"So... funny thing; the monster nurse who healed me at the hospital said someone had already healed me partway… Was that you?" 

Sans scoffed dismissively. "Oh, please, you think I care about your dumb ass?" 

"Oh… I guess it must have been some other monster. Whoever it was apparently sucks at healing; the doctor said that with the mess they made, I'll probably need surgery in the future to fix all the blood vessels that grew back in the wrong-"

"LOOK, healing is hard, okay?! It's not like I had a lot of time!"

"So it  _ was _ you! Ha!" Frisk shouted triumphantly.

"I should've let you fuckin' die," he muttered.

There were a couple minutes of awkward silence after that. When Frisk finally spoke, it was in a more subdued tone.

"Thanks for not ...letting me die. The nurse said I wouldn't have survived. I kinda owe you my life."

"Tch," he scoffed, looking out the window. "Wh-whatever. Where are we going, anyway? Cause right now it looks like you're taking me outside city limits to kill me without witnesses and bury the dust."

"What?? Why would you even think that?"

He shrugged. "It's what I'd do."

\-----

Sans had no fuckin' clue where he was. He'd never been to this part of town before; all he knew was that they had driven east until they were away from all the buildings and now they were somewhere outside of town. Frisk explained that she wanted to make sure nobody heard them talking. It was total overkill, but at least he had fun needling her about her driving on the way.

Finally, they pulled off the road.

"Sorry the car's such a mess," Frisk grumbled as she collected the trash from Burger Queen into a bag and neatly set it next to the piles of empty soda cans and chip bags in the back. "I let my friend borrow it for a week. I don’t even know how she managed to pile up this much crap in only a week; it’s like she hosted a house party in my car. I haven’t had a chance to clean it, yet, but I’m gonna as soon as I can so just bear with me for now."

Sans gestured at the empty dirt lot they were parked in. He said in a cartoonishly dramatic accent, "Behold the field in which I grow my fucks, and see that it is barren."

That actually got a small giggle out of her. Sans liked that sound. He should try to make her laugh more.

"So," she said, "We need to talk about what we're gonna do now. I think one of the first steps is disabling as many of the automatic commands on the collar as we can, and definitely making sure the shock-thing is off. I was thinking about it on the way over, and it might be a good solution to work around me accidentally giving commands if I set it to a different language. I'll set it to one I don't speak, and then there's no way to give commands even if I wanted to, which I absolutely don't."

"Careful now," Sans said sarcastically, "I wouldn't be a good charity case if I wasn't entirely at your mercy."

She fixed him with a serious expression. "You know I don't think of you that way, right? I'm not in this because I want to have 'good karma' or to feel better myself. I genuinely care about what happens to you."

"Why?" he asked cynically. "What have I ever done for you?" 

"Well for one thing, you saved my life. Twice"

"Nah, you wouldn't have been in those situations if it weren't for me. Freddy has a personal grudge against me; though pretty much everybody else does too. In fact, I don't think there's a single monster that likes me, anymore."

Before Frisk could respond with a question he definitely didn't want to answer, he continued, "Besides, you cared even before that. Hell, you tackled an old man for Chris'sake." He shook his head, grinning. "Funniest fuckin' thing I've ever seen."

"LOOK I had my reasons, okay?!" She said defensively. "Yeah, I could probably have thought of something better to do, but it was hard in the moment, alright? He was gonna freaking hit you." She looked at her arm where the bite marks had mostly disappeared. "Besides, it's not like he didn't get me back for it. I'm still worried I'm gonna come down with rabies or something."

Sans snorted. "I doubt it. Never saw him even get close to an animal, and I was with the asshole pretty much 24/7 for the past month. Couldn't do a damn thing for himself. Your legendary battle is the fastest I've ever seen him move."

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah. They'll write about it in the history books, right next to the chapter on the messed-up time period when humans enslaved monsters." 

"You say that like you think it's gonna stop soon," he said skeptically.

She shrugged. "I don't know. It'll probably take a lot of years, but eventually it has to change. People can't keep being this terrible forever. We've gotta make it happen, but someday we'll change everyone's mind."

Sans scoffed. "You're so fuckin' naive it's annoying." He looked out the window. "Humans  _ and _ monsters are never gonna stop bein' fuckin pricks. The whole 'give people a second chance' thing is hippy-dippy bullshit. You think people can really change?"

He expected Frisk to get angry at that. Instead, she gently said, "Sans," to get his attention back from the window. She wasn't frowning or smirking with some holier-than-thou look. She just looked… earnest. "That's not what I'm talking about. I think people can change, yes, but you're right- it is 'hippy-dippy bullshit' to expect them to."

The excessive patience with which she was treating him would usually have pissed Sans off; but for some reason, it didn't. Instead, he found himself interested in where this was headed.

Frisk continued, "No one does bad things without a reason. People forget that when they're angry. We assume others act the way they do because of who they intrinsically are, but then when we judge our own actions, we blame the situation. It's called the ‘fundamental attribution error.’ For instance, say a co-worker missed a project deadline and inconvenienced the other employees. 'Wow, Rebecca is such a shmuck,' you think."

"Is this hypothetical, or…?" Sans asked.

Frisk waved her hand dismissively. "Doesn't matter; besides, her name wasn't Rebecca. But anyway, then if  _ you  _ miss a project deadline, you blame it on circumstance. You say 'Well I would have done it on time but blah-blah excuse.' Maybe some unexpected stuff came up that week that was completely not your fault; like, for instance, you had to take your dog to the emergency vet at 2am because somehow they got on to the bathroom counter and ate a bunch of your make-up, then you had to take them back to the same vet two nights later cause they ate a bunch of goddamn  _ sand _ from the miniature zen-garden on your desk."

Sans snickered. "That's pretty damn specific. You sure it's just hypothetical, sweetheart?" 

...

_ HOLD UP. _

_ Did he seriously just say 'Sweetheart?!' _

Frisk seemed not to notice Sans' internal record scratch, because she grinned and continued, "Oh yeah,  _ completely _ hypothetical example. But hey! If you ever see a store selling mini-zen gardens, let me know; cause I do  _ not _ want to explain to my aunt what happened to the one she gave me." She giggled. "But anyway, my point was: it's inaccurate to judge a person for their actions without also considering the situation they were in."

Sans grunted. "Hmm. So what, is everyone just excused all the time for doing bad shit cause they were in a bad situation?"

Frisk frowned. "No. I still think there are 'bad people' in the world, and there should be consequences for what you do; but it's hypocritical to denounce someone for doing the same thing  _ you _ would have in their situation. There's no 'good' or 'evil,' there's just… people; and you can't really judge fairly if you don't know what it was like to be them. There's this delusion that you'll never do the same bad things because you're a better person than them. I realized that a long time ago and since then I've tried to look at myself with brutal honesty, even if the picture isn't flattering. If I had to fight to protect the people I loved, I like to imagine that I'd find some pacifistic way to save everyone. But truthfully, if it actually happened and it came down to life and death, I'd probably get my hands dirty. Same goes for war. You can't blame people for defending themselves and their people. It's what anyone would do, but only some people ever actually have to make that choice." 

Frisk looked at her lap, fiddling awkwardly with her fingers. "I think you know what I'm talking about, Sans."

He scowled and looked back out the window. "Yeah. You're not exactly subtle about it. Are you seriously telling me that you forgive monsters for what we did to humans?"

After a moment of thought, she replied, "I don't know, but I'd like to think that I  _ could _ . What about you? Do you forgive humans?"

Sans suppressed an involuntary growl. Memories of the war came to mind. Losing everyone he ever cared about. Hurting everyone he ever cared about. The humiliation of being a fuckin' slave. The cruelty and abuse he and all the other monsters had suffered in the past seven years.

"No, I sure fuckin' can't," he ground out. "Guess you're just a better person than me, huh?"

"That's not my point, Sans,” she said sternly. “I don't think I'm better than you."

"Eh, it's not exactly a high bar, anyways." He shrugged. "There are only a few people worse. And before you tell me I'm actually great and need to stop hating on myself, think about the file Chucklefuck showed you at the DMV. Numbers don’t lie." He wiggled his finger bones in the air. "Surprised these are still white, honestly." He dropped his hands back into his lap and looked out the window at the dusty wasteland around them.

The two of them sat in silence for a minute.

"...Do you want to talk about it?" Frisk finally asked.

Sans snorted. " _ Fuck _ , no."

"Okay ...Well, I'm here for you, if you want to talk." She smiled at him and his metaphorical heart skipped a metaphorical beat. He’d never cared much about how different humans looked; to him they were all just gross, fleshy skeletons. But Frisk... she was so pretty when she smiled. The setting sun cast her face in a gentle golden glow, amber eyes shining even as she squinted a little in the light. He felt… calm?

….

_ NO!  _

_ BAD!  _

_WALLS: PUT 'EM BACK UP,_ ** _RIGHT_** **_NOW_** _!_

Sans gave his head a vigorous shake. “Look,  _ human _ ,” he said through clenched teeth, “this buddy-chum-pal-amigo-homeslice-breadslice-dawg thing you want to happen? It ain't happening. I ain't your fuckin' friend."

He caught a flicker of hurt in Frisk's expression, but she quickly covered it up and smiled again. "Hey, can't blame a girl for trying. But you know what?" Her face set in a determined grin. "Whether you want it or not, I'm gonna be supportive as hell; and when the day comes that you realize you need a friend, you'll already have one." 

...Damn, Sans had to admit that wasn't a bad speech.  _ Unnnghhhh, _ this whole conversation was putting him dangerously close to processing emotions he'd successfully repressed for years. It took him a moment to think of a way to avert that disaster.

"Well" he said, "I actually do have something you could help me with by talking."

She brightened up at that, but still looked rightfully suspicious. "Oh?"

He grinned sardonically. "Yeah. Tell me something to make it easier for me to hate ya."

"...Huh," she said, looking thoughtful. "Like what?"

Sans waved his hand lazily through the air. "Anything. The worse, the better."

Frisk nibbled on her thumb as she considered it, and for a moment, his attention was entirely diverted. He wondered what that felt like. It was hard to imagine; skeletons didn't exactly have nibblible fingers.  _ It was kinda hot- _

"Okay," she said finally, "How about this? There's a bunch of questions I wanted to ask you that I haven't said out-loud because I figured it would make you mad. Will that work?"

Sans hadn't expected an actual, useful answer, but now he was curious. "Sure. Whadd'ya wanna know?"

She nibbled on another finger and hummed. He wished she'd stop doing that. It was really difficult to pay attention to anything else.

"Alright, first question: How many people have you killed?"

"You talkin' humans or monsters?" he asked.

"Oh.. uh…" She started nibbling on that damn thumb again. "Both, I guess."

He sighed. "You sure you want me to answer that?" 

She frowned. "No...probably not. I'm just gonna assume it's a lot."

He shrugged. "Honestly, I lost count."

"...That was during the war, right?" 

"Mostly. The Underground wasn't exactly hospitable at the end, and I've managed to take out a few owners since then. Sometimes they've actually had me kill other humans for mafia and gang shit, which is pretty much as fun as bein' a slave gets." 

Frisk nodded thoughtfully. She stared out the window for a bit before she spoke again. "...Hey, Sans?"

"Yeah?" he said, looking out his own window at the exceptionally disinteresting dirt lot.

"Could you... promise not to kill me?"

He turned around to face her, but she kept staring out the window. "The hell kinda thing is that to say??"

"I know you have every right to hate humans, me included, but…" She turned to look at him and gave a tiny sniffle. He watched her amber eyes waver slightly.  _ Shit. _

"Please, just… tell me you're not gonna kill me the moment you get the chance."

"Oh fer fuck'sake," Sans said, "Fine! I won't kill ya unless ya  _ reeeeally  _ piss me off, kay?"

Frisk shook her head. "I don't know if you've noticed, Sans, but I mess up a  _ lot _ . I know I'll do something by accident."

He groaned. "I'm not gonna kill ya over an honest mistake, Sweetheart."    
_ Dammit! He did it again! _

Frisk gave her eyes a quick swipe. Sans watched her completely unattractive chest rise and fall as she took a deep, calming breath. It was extremely un-sexy and he forced himself to look away.

"Can you please just say it? 'I promise not to kill you, Frisk.' Even if it's a lie, I need to hear it."

"I don't lie when I make promises," he growled. "If I make a promise, I keep it. Besides," he pointed at the ring of plastic on his neck. "I've got a control collar, dumbshit. I can't kill you, even if I wanted to."

"That's a lie, and you know  _ I know  _ it's a lie,” she retorted. “Monsters get around collars all the time. You literally just told me that you've killed humans since the war; and that bear almost killed  _ me _ yesterday!"

_ Damn it, Freddy.  _ He was gonna dust that sonnuva bitch the next time he saw him _.  _

"Listen," Sans said, dragging a hand down his face. "If it'll shut you up, I can tell you two specific commands that there's no way a monster can get around. Guaranteed safety. Capiche?"

"No," Frisk said stubbornly, "I'm not using that thing to control you."

Sans threw his arms up in exasperation. "Then yer a  _ fucking _ idiot! I'm a murderer!"

"Everyone's a murderer!" Frisk shouted back, raising her arms as well.

"The fuck- no, they're not!"

She gave him a sudden, hard stare."What happened Underground, Sans?"

The question was so unexpected that he was temporarily at a loss for words. "What hap… the hell d'ya wanna know that for?"

Frisk's effort to sound resolute was adorable. "What. Happened." 

"A lotta shit happened, that's what. We came topside and brought the shit with us. Then we got the shit  _ beaten _ out of us."

"Why?"

"Cause you guys figured out how to use our own fucking magic against us."

"No, why did you guys  _ attack _ us? No one knows why; it's one of the biggest unsolved mysteries. Even being ordered by the collars, no monster will talk about what happened Underground and why you didn't even  _ try _ to make peace with humans when you came up."

"Because we can't!" Sans snapped. He smiled at her confused expression. "Guess what, Sparky? The collars ain’t the only thing that can control a monster, and they're definitely not the oldest  _ or _ the strongest. It's honestly been  _ fun _ watching humans try to make monsters talk about it cause for once the collars don't work."

"But what if you're not actually commanded to say it? Like, if I ask you right now without it being a command."

Sans gave a sharp laugh. "Ha! You think humans haven't tried that? You can do anything you want to a monster- and oh,  _ they did _ \- but we won't talk about it because we  _ can't _ talk about it, not even to other monsters. I'm surprised we're even allowed to remember it."

"Allowed?"

He made a dismissive gesture. "Eh, don't ask, cause I can't tell ya."

"Not even yes or no questions?" 

"Nope. Like I said, they tried it all."

Frisk tried to look as cute as possible. "Wut if i ax wu wike dis? :3 Pweez Mistow Skeweton-"

Sans slapped a bony hand over her adorable mouth. " **N O.** Just- no. That's not gonna work either."

She giggled at him and then looked thoughtful. "...What about questions that aren't about what happened, but what happened because of it?"

Sans blinked. "Uh… it depends."

"May I try?"

He shrugged. "Sure, why not?" 

"Okay, did the thing cause the war?" 

Sans thought for a moment, prodding at the resistance. "Nah. Can't say, it counts."

Frisk looked at him with suspicion. "You're just saying that, aren't you."

Sans growled, but regretted it when she flinched a little. He sighed and rubbed his nasal ridge. "Let's get one thing straight, okay? I don't lie. Period. But hey, if you don't believe me," he pointed at the collar on his neck, "just say the word and I've gotta tell the truth." 

Frisk shook her head. "I believe you." She looked thoughtful for a moment. "What if I ask instead… what was the happiest time in your life like?"

Huh. Memories of snowball fights and hamburgers came to mind; using echo flowers to talk to each other from opposite sides of the same room. Then there was that time he had told an especially bad joke to Papyrus while he was drinking chocolate milk and it came out of his nose when he laughed. That was probably when his lil' bro had started disliking puns. Thinking about it made Sans start to smile unconsciously. In fact, he was so preoccupied with whether or not he  _ could _ say it that he didn't stop to think if he  _ should _ say it. 

"When Pap was little. We used to-"  _ Shit.  _ Sans looked at Frisk, preparing to deflect questions about his brother. For once, she was tactfully silent. She just waited for him to continue. 

"The happiest part of my life was a long time ago, before everything got bad and the thing happened," he said.

Frisk tapped the steering wheel with her fingers. "So… when you were happy, were you mean? Did you kill people?"

"What? No, I didn't kill anyone until we _ GRNGH! _ " Sans' words stopped like he'd run into a brick wall. It took him a moment to recover. "No. No killing when we were happy.”

"Was there ever a time you were happy to kill someone?"

"Yes," he answered easily. After a moment of silence he said, "Ya want me to elaborate, or…?"

Frisk shook her head. "No, I probably don't. What about…. the first time you killed someone, was it because you wanted to or you had to?"

Sans didn't want to remember that day. "Had to," he answered quickly. 

"Monster or human?"

"Monster, now move on."

"Okay. The  _ last _ time you killed someone, did you do it because you wanted to or had to?"

Sans wanted to say "had to," but that wasn't true. The last human he had killed was the owner previous to the old man with the disgusting bunions, and there was no denying he did that because he  _ wanted _ to. And he did  _ not _ do it quickly. "Wanted."

Frisk didn't look surprised. "I'm guessing that was one of your owners, right?"

"Yup. Real piece of work. I don't feel like talking about it and you  _ definitely _ don't wanna hear about it, so move on."

"Yeah, that's probably for the best." She nibbled on that  _ goddamn sexy thumb again.  _ "Okay; have you ever killed someone for absolutely no reason?"

Sans frowned. "Whadd'ya mean?"

"Like, just randomly picked someone you'd never met, who had never done anything to hurt you or the people you loved- human or monster- and killed them solely because it was pleasurable to do so?"

"Holy fuck, do I really come across as that much of a psycho? Of course I had always had a fucking reason."

Frisk tried and failed to completely repress a smug smile, clearly resisting the opportunity to say ' _ See? Told you so.' _

Sans scowled. "Next question."

"Okay. Even if you had a reason, have you ever killed when it wasn't justified?"

Memories of terrified civilians rose unbidden to his mind. 

_ They weren't even trying to fight back. _

"...Yes."

"You hesitated. Is that because you feel bad about what you did?"

_ He couldn't sleep. _

"I feel…awful."

"Did you want to do it?" 

_ It was so much fun.  _

"At the time…yes"

"So not anymore? Why, what changed?"

Because of the thing. He shook his head. Frisk seemed to understand what he meant, but looked suspicious. Sans had a bad feeling about what she was going to ask next.

"At the DMV, Chunky, or whatever he was called, said your collar was first gen. Does that mean you got captured early on? Like, when they first started using the collars?”

Sans eyes flickered out like candlelights. 

_ He’d thought they’d torture him… but what happened was  _ **_so much worse._ **

"Do you honestly think I want to talk about that?" he snarled. He didn’t want to remember this; he really,  _ really  _ didn’t want to remember this.

_ There was so much dust. He couldn't stop. Why couldn't he stop?! _

Surprisingly, Frisk didn't let it drop. "No; the whole point of this was for me to piss you off by asking invasive questions, so here's another one: you said you’ve killed both, but which one have you killed more? Humans or monsters?"   
He didn’t want to answer that. He wasn’t even sure what the answer was; though if he had to guess...

_ Get away from me, Pap. _

Sans wanted to argue; say that he didn’t owe her any information about what he’d done. But he just felt… tired. After a moment, he gave a weak, defeated laugh. "Heh… you know, we had a saying Underground. 'Every time you kill, it becomes easier to kill again.'” He stared at his hands, lying limp in his lap. “I've…."

_ Was it ever his choice?  _ **_Ever?_ **

"...I've killed a lot of humans, Frisk," he almost whispered.

_ All of ‘em, even the small ones. _

He shut his eyes. "And...a  _ lot _ of monsters." 

_ Everyone was going to die because of him. _

_ " _ Sans."

_ He fucked up so bad, and now everyone was gonna die. _

"Sans, you've got to stop!

_ It was all his fault. He should’ve never let himself get taken alive. _

"SANS!"

"What?!" Sans screamed; or at least, he tried to scream. What came out was more akin to an angry sob.

He opened his eyes to see Frisk looking at him, worriedly. "You're crying."

Sans blinked. He touched a cheekbone and felt wetness. His finger came away stained with translucent red liquid.

"You… you  _ are _ crying, right?" Frisk asked. "Cause there's red fluid coming out of your eyes and if it's not tears, I'm very concern-"

"YEAH, I'M FUCKIN' CRYING!" Sans yelled angrily between sobs. "FUCK! THIS IS WHY YER NOT SUPPOSED TO TALK ABOUT FEELINGS! WHAT A FUCKIN' TROPE!" The skeleton curled himself into a ball as tight as he could, hugging his knees to his chest.

"I'm-I'm so sorry for asking, I should've guessed-"

"Shuddup and make it stop!"

"...You mean, with a command?"

"No shit!"

Frisk wrinkled her nose in disgust. "That's a thing? People really command monsters to stop crying?" 

"All the fuckin' time! Hurry up!"

Frisk folded her arms. "I'm not doing it, Sans."

He glared at her, vision swimming. "Are you gonna make me fuckin' beg?! Just say 'stop!' "

"I'm not giving you a command."

Sans uncurled enough to scream, "Well, then get the fuck out, ya useless prick!" 

Frisk obediently opened the car door and got out, leaving Sans alone with no escape from himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eh? :D What'd ya think? Too cryptic? Not cryptic at all?  
> I know I said I had a plan for where this story was going, but... this is as far as that plan went. I have no idea what the characters are gonna do now. So, I'm putting the choice to you guys! If you were in Frisk's shoes (new owner of a _bone_ fide-tsundere monster slave) what would you do?  
>   
>   
>  _bonus: there's a line in this that I **absolutely** stole right outta [Songfell](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23348839/). Can you find it?_


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